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The entire Fatty Liver community benefits from NASH Patient Advocacy and the work of our advocates, but relatively few of us understand what advocates do or how we benefit from their work. Leading German patient advocate Achim Kautz and Global Liver Institute Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs Andrew Scott discuss how they came to Fatty Liver patient advocacy, their priorities and activities that support our community, and the unique challenges of their fascinating work.

This conversation winds up focusing on two key areas to focus future organizing and advocacy. The first is to think locally. Achim and Andrew point out that they can find success working with local and regional governments and then build up from this success to a national discussion. The second is clear, consistent communication between all stakeholders in the Fatty Liver community and between the community and the payers and government forces we need to persuade.

The entire Fatty Liver community benefits from NASH Patient Advocacy and the work of our advocates, but relatively few of us understand what advocates do or how we benefit from their work. Leading German patient advocate Achim Kautz and Global Liver Institute Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs Andrew Scott discuss how they came to Fatty Liver patient advocacy, their priorities and activities that support our community, and the unique challenges of their fascinating work.

This conversation starts with some polite disagreement about whether there is an actual community. At the end of Conversation 23.3, Achim suggested that there is no clear community because of the lack of Fatty Liver focus in specialties and patient groups addressing other metabolic diseases like diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Andrew Scott discusses the work of the Global Liver Institute NASH Council, which focuses on bringing these exact communities into the discussion, at least within the US. The rest of the conversation focuses on using an understanding of metabolic parameters to know which patients should see primary care vs. hepatologists vs. other specialists. It ends with Roger Green asking whether and how politicians, who want solutions that happen quickly and have hard metrics, can get behind this broad an effort.

The entire Fatty Liver community benefits from NASH Patient Advocacy and the work of our advocates, but relatively few of us understand what advocates do or how we benefit from their work. Leading German patient advocate Achim Kautz and Global Liver Institute Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs Andrew Scott discuss how they came to Fatty Liver patient advocacy, their priorities and activities that support our community, and the unique challenges of their fascinating work.

This conversation introduces you to patient advocates Achim Kautz and Andrew Scott and reveals the vastly different backgrounds they bring to their roles. (Side note: Achim’s “things you wouldn’t know if he didn’t tell you”) is one of our two favorites so far this year.) The differences in their backgrounds are significant, but far more striking is their common passion for elevating Fatty Liver disease priorities in the minds of the government figures with whom they advocate for our community.